a highly sensitive time, security wise:
Aljazeera 18.Apr.08Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has defended his right to meet Hamas in course of his current visit to the Middle East.Israel has meanwhile sealed the West Bank and Gaza for 10 days as it prepares to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Carter is heading to Syria for talks with Khaled Meshaal, the exiled Hamas leader. It is a personal trip that has drawn fierce rebukes from the White House and Israel.
But speaking in Cairo, Carter defended his meetings, calling them necessary in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Carter also described the siege on Gaza as a crime and an atrocity on Thursday.
Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death", receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.
"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza," he said. "It's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on."
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21 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover.The Second Book of Moses, Called Exodus 12
22 And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the basin; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.
23 For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.
